


The Indignities to Come

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [292]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha Peggy Carter, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, F/M, Imagined Infidelity, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Not Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, Omega Steve Rogers, Rapidly Approaching Threesome, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 16:41:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: It happened in the Ardennes. It shouldn’t have. But it did.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: The delightful a/b/o spiral that [places](https://archiveofourown.org/users/places/pseuds/places) pulled me into in the comments of a recent MM.
> 
> **If you're new to the Mental Mimosa series, I strongly suggest you read an important note about how MM works [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1012767).**

It happened in the Ardennes. It shouldn’t have. But it did.

The first symptoms were a stumble, one that left him sprawled on the ground, breathless, and a sunny afternoon when all Steve could feel was cold.

“Hey,” Bucky said quietly when they stopped for a rest, canteen and flask moving around the group at equal speed, “you ok?”

“Of course.” Steve kept his voice light and avoided t meet Bucky’s eyes. “Come on, Buck, it’s me. I’m fine.”

And he could tell himself that, almost believed it, until he started awake in the depths of the night, a telltale ache in his thighs.

It’s different for everybody, the calling cards of a heat, no matter what the textbooks say. In basic, the information had been more through than he’d gotten in school, but the message boiled down to the same: it’s an omega’s responsibility to keep track of their heats and hey, it’s easy once you know how.

But for Steve it was more complicated. Always had been, both before and after the serum. Before, his body was too weak to effectively absorb over-the-counter blockers; they’d left him feeling sick all the time. After, the damn things weren’t strong enough and his body metabolized them too quickly. The Army boys had tinkered around and handed him a new set of pills; when those had FUBAR’d his hormones, they’d put their heads back together and come up with a shot.

Which was great, which was fine, but they couldn’t tell him how long it would last, and even though he was Captain America, for crying out loud, they’d chucked him under the chin like good little omega and told him not to worry his pretty head. _The war will be over in a year or two, anyway,_ they said, these Bunsens who’d never looked up from their beakers. _You’ll be fine, Steve. You’ll see._

And he had been. Up until now.

Now, he could feel his heat approaching like a train riding on a summer storm: it would be ugly when it hit, this one, because it’d been so very long. That was the kicker about blockers, wasn’t it? They gave you smooth sailing until you dropped off them and then, bam! You’d pay for that smooth sailing, all right.

He squirmed in his bedroll and tried desperately not to; Buck was right beside him, the squad not two feet away, and Peggy--

He groaned. Oh hell. Agent Carter.

If he had one blessing in being with the Commandos themselves, it was that there wasn’t an alpha among them; it was, he figured, one reason why for the most part they all got along. Bucky was an alpha, though, and that Steve could handle. They’d gotten each other through tight spots before. But the Commandos' leader, Agent Carter, Peggy, she was an alpha’s alpha with a drive and a ferocity, when need be, that no one Steve had ever met could match and she would not react well, oh no she would not, to having a heat-sick omega in her ranks.

She would know even if he didn’t tell her. His stomach turned over and he covered his eyes. God, truth be told, she probably already did. She probably knew how soft his pussy was feeling, how in a few hours he’d be starting to drip. She’d know that he’d want to be filled and bred, that there would be a time when he could think of nothing else, when it was bad enough that he’d open for any alpha and beg.

His cheeks burned. Shit, if he got close enough, she’d know all that in just one breath.

She was so haughty towards him sometimes. In all the time that he’d known her, she’d shown a singular skill at getting just friendly enough to be interesting and then abruptly pulling away. All the other lads liked her; when he was drunk, Dugan liked to ask her to marry him. Even she and Buck, after some initial wariness, were cordial.

But with Steve, she’d always been prickly, often distant, and on those rare occasions when they had a conversation that drifted beyond ops, he’d sensed a distance in her, a desire not to get too close. She’d been up for the serum, too, part of that super soldier class; when they’d chosen Steve, the only omega in the whole lot, though, she was the only one of the alphas who hadn’t shouted or cried. Despite her disappointment, she hadn’t really seemed that surprised. When he and Buck had been assigned to her outfit, though, she’d greeted him without animous and introduced them to the Commandos not as temporary liaisons but as new, tried and true members of the group.

Still, she hadn’t seemed to warm up to him at all, and he envied the other boys sometimes when she sat with them and carried on and joked. She had a gorgeous smile, their Miss Carter; he would have paid good money to just once have it aimed his way. Instead, he seemed to irritate her, like the everyday equivalent of a stye--a perpetual reminder that for all of her skills, all of her power, when the chips were down, Uncle Sam had overlooked her for an omega. He was the one on the recruiting posters, not her; his was the name little kids yelled at each other as they played Allies vs. Nazis in the street. When you came down to it, outside of her unit, nobody knew who Miss Carter was.

And soon he’d be at his lowest and she’d damn well know it and something told him she'd like that, would revel in his indignity. Huh, he thought, shaking his head at the stars: he might get one of her smiles aimed his way after all.

*****

Bucky knew as soon as he woke up. Rolled over and said: “What the fuck?”

Steve didn’t answer, just looked at him, pleading, which in itself he guessed was answer enough.

A sigh. “When?”

“12 hours, maybe 18? You know how they used to be for me: unpredictable as hell.”

“Yeah, but that was before the serum,” Bucky said. “Something tells me this shit is gonna move a lot faster now.” He sat up and shook the leaves from his hair, squinted across the way at Agent Carter’s tent. “You’re gonna have to tell her, you know. We need to find someplace to hole up till it passes.”

“I know.”

He could feel Bucky’s eyes on him, appraising. “She’s not gonna like it.”

“Yeah, Buck. No shit.”

When his face was clean and his nerves bolstered by whiskey, he approached the flap of her tent. Stayed outside it. Called: “Ma’am?”

She was pulled together already, every hair pinned in place even as she knelt down to tie up her bedroll. “Captain.”

“I need to ask for a favor.”

“A favor?” Slowly her dark head came up. He saw her nose twitch. “Of what sort?”

“Ma’am,” he said, “I’m in heat. Or I mean, I will be soon.”

“How soon?”

“Honestly, Agent Carter, I have no earthly idea. The serum--”

She cut him off quick. “Am I to assume that you wish to take Sergeant Barnes with you for the duration?”

His face flushed. She knew about he and Bucky; they all did. Wasn’t much use in trying to hide it. “Yes.”

“You are aware, aren’t you,” Miss Carter said, “that were are four days’ walk from our objective and that the mission we’re on is extremely time sensitive?”

His teeth clenched. “I understand,” he said, “but ma’am, this is not something I can control. Believe me, if I’d know this would happen, I would have stayed back in the village. The last thing I want to do is jeopardize this mission, I--”

She stood up and brushed her hands clean, her eyes in his, coldly. “Spare me the patriotic humdrum, won’t you? And do spare the rest of us, too, from any of the indignities to come. To that end, I suggest you and the sergeant cut away from the team before we break camp.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Miss Carter turned her back on him. Said: “We passed a barn a few clicks back, I believe. Shelled half to hell, as I recall, but given the lateness of the hour, as it were, perhaps that would be your best bet.”

“We’ll rejoin you as soon as we can, Agent Carter.”

She looked back over her shoulder and smiled at him, tight-lipped and white. “See that you wash off before you do.”

“What’s she say?” Bucky asked through a mouthful of stale bread. “You smell fucking pissed.”

Steve grabbed his sack and jammed it on his back. “She said plenty, none of it real polite. Can we go?”


	2. Chapter 2

It took them all morning and half the afternoon to hike back to the barn. It should’ve taken them half that. But as the sun rose and the birds sang, Steve’s bones started feeling like jelly and his head got swimmy, like a fishbowl somebody was toting under one arm.

“Hey,” Bucky said when Steve tripped over nothing and nearly planted his face in the dirt. “Hey, baby, it’s ok. You’re ok.”

“No, I’m not.” There were tears on his face. He could barely look Buck in the eye. “I’m a goddamn fucking mess.”

Bucky smoothed a hand down his arm and stepped in close, closer. Tipped his head back so Steve could get a good whiff of his scent: warm and nutty, like always, and now, an undercurrent of toasted spice. “Yeah, you are,” he murmured. “But I’m here and we’re almost there. Another few minutes and you can stretch out while I scratch together a nest for us, hmmm? Won’t that be nice?”

Steve pressed his mouth against Bucky’s throat and breathed and breathed until the sloshy feeling in his brain settled a little, the water in that fishbowl tipping back towards even keel. “So nice,” he said softly. He could smell his tears on Bucky’s skin. “Need you, Buck.”

A low hum, five blunt fingers in his hair. “I know you do, kid. So come on, huh? Let’s walk.”

True to his word, once the barn was in sight, Buck stripped Steve of his pack and pushed him gently into the moss and the leaves. “Stay,” he said, smiling. “You stay right there and I’ll get us settled, ok?”

Steve nodded and let himself fall back until his back was on the forest floor and his face was aimed straight at the sky. “Ok,” he repeated. “I’ll stay.”

The barn itself had been abandoned to begin with, the last vestiges of what Ralston, summoning his best Kentucky drawl, said must have once been the outer edges of a farm. But if this had been somebody’s pasture, they’d long ago lost the battle to the woods; the trees were tall enough to shield the sky with their leaves and the ground itself was covered twice over in pine needles and running cedar and here and there, wildflowers, purple and yellow and pink pushing up out of the brown. Even the shells that had struck nearby--at least crashing through the barn’s ancient roof--hadn’t really disturbed it, the gentle peace of the place; even then, as Steve lay in the soft earth tormented by the vagaries of his body, it felt easier to breathe there, easier to stay out of the spiral that was pounding at his head and focus on the sound of the wind and the branches dancing above him, on Bucky’s grunts and curses and self-pleased hums as he shuffled around in the barn.

He dozed a little, he must have, because he startled when Bucky touched his arm.

“Stevie,” Bucky said. “Baby, you gotta get up now for me.”

“Hmmm?”

“Ugh, you big fucking lug.” Bucky yanked him up by the shirt, grounding himself in the dirt so he could take on some of Steve’s weight. “Getting all dreamy on me, huh?”

Steve tottered on his feet. He didn’t feel sick anymore; god, that was so nice. He leaned into his best friend, his alpha, and hummed again, grinning. God, Bucky smelled so goddamn nice.

“Yep,” Bucky said, and hey, they were moving. Steve wasn’t exactly sure how, but they were: out of the sun and towards the cool, damp shade of the barn. “Definitely dreamy. God bless those hormones, kid. I miss you being drunk.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” It was darker now; Steve’s boots caught on the wood floor. “You were so much fun to fuck when you were trashed back in the day. You remember? You stopped worrying about making too much noise or having the neighbors hear us. You used to holler for me, honey, when you were out of your gourd. You remember that?”

They came to a halt and suddenly Steve felt all prickly and hot, like his skin was being needle-pricked by lightning. Bucky’s smell was different: richer now, rougher, his fingers kneading at the back of Steve’s neck.

“You’re gonna scream for me, Stevie.” Those blue eyes in his, bright and familiar. “There ain’t nobody for fucking miles to hear one single peep and, sweetheart, I want you so bad.”

There was heat in Steve’s cunt then--no, he realized, it’d been there for hours, but his brain had been trying to spare him. He’d soaked through his boxers and his goddamn pants were damp with it and he was torn between humiliation and the red rake of desire because his alpha knew how he felt, knew what a mess he was, knew and liked it, loved him,  _ wanted _ \--

Bucky touched his throat and he whined, arching towards the soft stroke of Bucky’s hand, the press of Bucky’s thumb against the faded mark on his neck. The serum hadn’t taken it totally, washed it away like every other cut or bruise, and fuck, Steve was grateful for it, never more so than in moments like this, when Bucky petted it or kissed it and reminded him who he belonged to, reminded him that no matter how much the face in the mirror had changed, how the streets of home had given way to Hitler’s Europe, how far away today felt from that day when they were 16 and horny and driven half crazy by Bucky’s first rut and how Bucky had bitten him--first mindless, as his knot bloomed, and then slowly later, deliberate, asking sweetly and moaning softly when Steve had said over and over:  _ Yes, yes. Yes. _

It didn’t matter that they were laying in straw now, nestled between their bedrolls with the sharp smell of dry hay and sunshine around them instead of tucked into a big, fluffy bed. That first time, they’d been in Steve’s room, his mom out of night shift, the thin mattress growing thinner as they touched and kissed and fucked; later, when Steve’s first heat had come, Bucky had licked him open in the back of a friend’s Ford and pulled Steve on his lap and filled him up until Steve was sobbing, dripping around Bucky’s knot and coming and coming until it seemed as if all he’d ever known was pleasure: the hitch of Bucky’s dick and the sound of his voice, soft and cajoling, the tips of his fingers relentless over Steve’s swollen clit.

So this, here, falling back against well-worn nylon as Bucky tore at his shirt and bent his head over the soft, puffy strain of Steve’s nipples as the evening approached and the birds sang and somewhere, far away, the war raged on as Agent Carter and the Commandos raced towards it--

Agent Carter. The mission. He shivered. Miss Carter. Peggy, she--

He groaned and clutched at Bucky’s hair, shoved himself at that hot, loving mouth.

“Mmmmm,” Bucky grunted between sucks. “Good boy. You like that, don’t you? Look how you're leaking."

Behind his eyes, he saw Miss Carter’s back, the square of her shoulders. That sneer at the corners of her mouth.

He lifted his hips and rubbed himself against the steel between Bucky’s legs, his pussy fluttering, his face heating, a low moan slipping out of his mouth.

“That’s it,” Bucky said. He reached for Steve’s belt. “Let go of it, sweetheart.”

Dark hair in his hands, threaded through his fingers; for a moment, though, he held chestnut curls, and the mouth on his skin wasn’t sweet but savage, his nipple held between ruby lips and pulled by sharp, white teeth.

And when he cried out, Bucky’s fingers barely brushing his pussy, it was Miss Carter’s face he saw, her slim hand that was parting his folds, Bucky’s, then a whimper and loud, sticky heat and what came out of his mouth was all sound, a symphony, two alphas intertwined in his head.

“Oh, fuck yes, Stevie,” Bucky growled. He slipped his hand lower, a soft pressure, and in. “Just like that; come for me. Let me hear that again.”


End file.
